Microsoft Azure Helps Researchers Predict Traffic Jams

Microsoft Research is now working with Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil to tackle the problem of traffic jams. The immediate objective of this research is to predict traffic conditions over the next 15 minutes to an hour, so that drivers can be forewarned of likely traffic snarls.

The Traffic Prediction Project plans to leverage all available traffic data — including both historic and current information gleaned from transportation departments, Bing traffic maps, road cameras and sensors, and the social networks of the drivers themselves – combining it all to create a solution that gets motorists from point A to point B with minimal stop-and-go. The use of historic data and information from social networks are both unique aspects of the project.

Microsoft researchers are using Microsoft Azure because of its exceptional scalability, storage capacity, and computational power as it will be the perfect resource for this data-intensive project. And because Microsoft Azure is cloud-based, running the Traffic Prediction service on Azure makes it accessible to all users, in real time, all of the time.